


where the treetops glisten

by Destina



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Christmas, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-23
Updated: 2010-12-23
Packaged: 2018-04-06 00:22:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4200771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Destina/pseuds/Destina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jensen figures out what being home for Christmas really means.</p>
            </blockquote>





	where the treetops glisten

**Author's Note:**

> Written in 2010 for the insmallpackages exchange, prompt #94 - Ficlet, J2, schmoopy pining during Xmas. This is set sometime back in season 3 or 4, during their house-sharing days. Thanks to Barkley for her encouragement. 
> 
> Posted to AO3 in June 2015.

"You sure you don't want to come with?" Jensen asked, eyeing Jared. It didn't seem right to get on a plane and leave Jared in Vancouver for Christmas. 

"Nah, man. I've got all this stuff to do, scripts to read and other things I promised my agent I'd get on. I'm just...I need some rest. I'm not up to doing the family thing this year." Something about the way Jared said it made Jensen suspicious, but he knew better than to press the issue. Jared enfolded him in a huge hug. "Tell your mama I said hello," Jared said, his mouth so close to Jensen's ear that his words tickled. 

Ten hours later, Jensen was at his parents' front door, shaking his father's hand and fending off hugs from his mother. "You look tired," she said, which Jensen thought might actually be the understatement of the century. "Your brother and sister won't be here until Saturday, so you have plenty of time to rest and relax before then." 

Half an hour into his visit, he was sprawled out on the couch, half a beer in him. Beer was better than a sedative, and within seconds of his head hitting the worn pillow, he was out like a light. 

When he woke an hour later, groggy and disoriented, the first thing he noticed was that the couch seemed to have shrunk about five inches. As a result, his legs were twisted into an unnatural position, and his lower spine appeared to be permanently deformed. 

The second thing was the wreath over the fireplace. Jensen blinked a few times and stared at it. It was all wrong: vivid red fake poinsettia flowers and bright, crisp green leaves, and tiny sprays of gold thingamawhatsis spread all through it. It looked unnatural. It took him a second to realize that Jared's slightly floppy, undeniably well-used wreath, with its pinkish flowers and black leaves, was what seemed normal to him now. 

"Well, uh, they were green when I bought this?" Jared had told him, the first Christmas he brought the thing out. Jensen remembered staring at it in horror. 

"Black leaves, dude? It looks like something I'd be embarrassed to have at my funeral."

"I put it in the sun for like ten minutes and everything faded." 

"That's what happens when you buy everything in your house for under a dollar." 

Jared had laughed, long and loud, and from then on it had become a point of pride with him: it wasn't Christmas unless the funeral poinsettia was on the front door. 

Seeing a wreath so polished and perfect in his mother's house was almost obscene by comparison. 

With a grunt, Jensen straightened his legs and sat up, and waited a moment for his spine to return to its normal shape. Then he fished his phone out of his pocket and called Jared. 

"What kind of cookies does your mom have this year?" was the way Jared answered. 

Jensen made a face at the phone. "Really? That's how you greet me? Not how was the flight, when is your--"

"Did she make the little cookies with the pecans and the powdered sugar?" Jared paused. "I think I just drooled on my shirt." 

"Okay, Harley." Jensen smiled. "I haven't checked it out yet. Been busy doing other stuff." 

"Oh, hell no. Nap after you scope out the cookies. You need to bring some of those back for me," Jared added, then said, "Use a nice big tin!"

"You're a greedy bastard," Jensen said, and snapped the phone shut. It was eerie, how Jared seemed to have zoomed in on him through the phone and knew he'd been sleeping. Maybe there was a spycam in his mother's perfect wreath. 

He stared at the wreath a while longer, but his brain just wouldn't accept it. "I can't believe you ruined me for regular Christmas decorations," he said under his breath to a Jared who not only wasn't there, but who was at that moment probably eating Chips Ahoy out of the bag by the handful and dancing around the kitchen to keep the dogs away from the crumbs. 

**

The cookie situation just made things even weirder. There were tins and Tupperware all over the kitchen, filled with delicious things, and his mother was standing by the stove with her hand on her hip. Jensen sniffed and sighed. Meatloaf for dinner. Also, something cake-like was cooling on a rack. 

"Touch that and die," his mother said, even though he hadn't moved. 

"What?" He couldn't even keep the grin off his face. "Is that apple cake?"

"Yes, it is, and it is for the neighbors. Which means it must be given intact, Jensen, not even one tiny sliver of it in your stomach!" His mother's eyes twinkled as she set her oven mitts down. "Did you have a good nap?"

"Really excellent. Is that a new couch?" He popped the lid of the nearest tin and frowned. No honey balls. Just normal chocolate chip. 

"No." Mom gave him a strange look. "It's the same size it's always been. Have you grown an inch or two? Come here." 

"I'm kind of past the age where I'm adding inches, Mom," he said, but he let her manhandle him until he was toe to toe with her. 

"Nope. Still the same handsome man you were when you left," she said, and stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. He hugged her. 

Maybe he was just used to the couch at Jared's, which was big enough to nap on with inches to spare, even if he had an arm flung over his head. This, of course, was because Jared was an enormous man, and needed enormous things to hold him. It was a super-comfortable couch, though, and his spine liked it very much. 

He sat down at the kitchen table and looked around. Everything was familiar, but not. He couldn't get past the strange feeling that something had totally changed this last time while he'd been gone. The ugly baby-shit green kitchen canisters were still by the stove, and the toaster cover his grandmother knitted back in the day was still guarding the toaster. 

The meatloaf smelled great. Kind of like Jared's spicy spaghetti, which Jensen could almost taste if he concentrated hard enough. 

Just then his phone buzzed, and when he flipped it open, he heard barking in the background. "Jensen? Sadie ate something of yours. Something really important." 

"Ate? As in, needs to be reclaimed from the back end?"

"Nah, more like tore all to hell. You didn't really want that book you left on the coffee table, did you?"

"What, the new Stephen King? Come on, tell me she didn't go right for it."

"Okay. If you want me to -- Sadie! Sadie, cough that up, holy shit." There was banging and rustling, and Jensen tried to contain his snickers. "Did you tell your mother I said hello?"

"Mom, Jared says hello," Jensen said, without missing a beat. Grinning, he asked, "Next time, could you feed Sadie something of your own as a chew toy?"

"Dude, not her fault she goes for the low-hanging fruit." 

Jensen winced. "That conjures up images I think are better left unconjured." 

"Conjure me up some cookies!" Jared said, and the phone went dead. 

Mom sat down at the table with him as Jensen closed his phone. "How is Jared, honey?"

"The usual. Crazy dogs, crazy Jared." Jensen glanced up at his mother and frowned. "What?"

"Why didn't he go home to his family?"

The way she said it, it seemed like the most obvious question in the world. Jensen shook his head. "I don't know. He said he needed a break." 

Mom made a sympathetic noise, but her eyes were narrowed, and she was looking at Jensen in that same way she did when she'd caught him sneaking out of the house and was just waiting for him to confess. Then the moment passed, and she said, "I will have to send some cookies back for him." 

"Yeah," Jensen said, still unnerved by her look of motherly scrutiny. 

The bell for the meatloaf went off, and took his mother's attention off him for long enough that he sighed with relief. 

The meatloaf, fresh from the oven, totally reminded him of Jared's spaghetti, which Jared was probably eating alone, with no one but ravenous dogs for company. 

"Hm." 

"Did you say something honey?"

"No," he said. He'd asked Jared to come home with him, but Jared had said no, which was understandable. If he was going anywhere, he'd be going to his own family. Something was off, but Jensen just couldn't put his finger on it. 

With a sigh, Jensen pocketed his phone. Deep thoughts could wait until after dinner. And cookies. 

**

Once the meatloaf had been devoured, there was a round of present wrapping, which culminated in his mother taking over most of the duties and Jensen back on the couch -- upright this time -- enjoying a companionable beer with his dad. They talked about mundane things, football and the house and work, and Jensen leaned back, content. He let his eyes wander around the room, stopping on all the familiar things, some Christmas decorations older than he was. 

A variety of presents waited under the tree, most of them neatly wrapped with tidy bows. Jared's present to his mom and dad, however, was topped with the most ridiculous, flop-eared, golden bow that existed in the world. It was so large, it sagged under its own weight, and it covered the entire top of the present. 

A flash of Jared's face popped into Jensen's head, how Jared had looked when he was wrapping it: grinning ear to ear, hair in his eyes as he slid the bow around to make sure it would cover the entire thing, happy and mischievous and excited. 

In that moment, Jensen missed Jared so much he could feel it right down to his toes. His stomach did a little flip, and he swallowed hard. 

"Excuse me a second, Dad," he said, and levered himself up from the couch. He let himself out the front door and two seconds later, he was dialing Jared's number. 

"Did you call to take my cookie order?"

"No, one-track mind, I did not. I just...I don't know. Is there anything left of my book?"

"Sadly, no. Sadie's real sorry, though. She's baking gingerbread right now for you, to say sorry."

"I don't get home until Tuesday," Jensen said softly. The words he'd just said registered with him: home. Not back, but _home_ , to the house he shared with Jared. 

"Well. Gingerbread makes the house smell more like Christmas, you know?" Another pause. "It'll keep 'til you get here." 

Jensen took a deep breath, and then another. Above him, the sky was crystal clear, not even a single snow flurry falling down from the stars. 

"Is it snowing there?" Jensen asked. 

"Not yet," Jared answered. "Tonight, they say." 

"Better bottle up some and send it to me, then."

"It loses something in translation." 

Jensen nodded, still staring at the sky. 

"Night, Jensen." 

"Night." 

He stayed out there staring up at the clear sky for a while, until his mother joined him. She was bundled in her old white sweater, and she handed Jensen a fresh beer. 

"Thanks, Mom." 

"You're welcome." She stood beside him and looked up at the sky. "Was that Jared?"

"Yeah. It's going to snow there. It just doesn't seem like Christmas without snow, you know?"

"It's not the snow that makes the Christmas, honey." Her small hand landed warm on his elbow, rubbing gently. 

Jensen had the idea that he might be kind of an idiot, but he had no idea how to explain what he was feeling. "It's complicated, Mom."

"No, it's not." Mom cleared her throat. "I think I'd better pack up some cookies." 

 

**

It took some time to get a flight on such short notice, but Jensen managed it. He didn't answer his phone in the meantime. Even if he knew what he needed to say to begin with, he wasn't having that conversation until he and Jared were face to face. Maybe drunk on egg nog. With extra rum. 

Jared texted and emailed him instead -- silly messages, pictures of his socks, a picture of his left nostril - and Jensen couldn't bring himself to delete any of them. 

When he let himself in the front door, the first thing he noticed was the stupid ugly wreath. He touched its limp petals, and a bone-deep feeling of rightness flooded through him. The smell of gingerbread permeated the house, rich and delicious, making Jensen's mouth water. Jared knew damn well gingerbread was his favorite. 

The house was dark, but the glow of Christmas lights from the living room drew him. He stopped short in the doorway and stared. Jared was asleep on the floor, one foot crushing a present under the Christmas tree, the other flung out to the side. Sadie and Harley were both asleep under the tree, but Sadie's head was on Jared's stomach, and his hand was on her head. The tree was lit up, multi-colored lights blinking silently. 

It was the most perfect thing Jensen had ever seen. 

Sadie raised her head, and when she caught side of him she was up in an instant, tail wagging, trotting to his side. Jensen dropped down to scratch behind her ears and accept her greeting of friendly licks. "Hey, beautiful," he murmured, as she panted in his face. 

"You say the nicest things," Jared rasped, his voice low and gravely from sleep. 

Jensen grinned and stood up. The slumbering giant was waking, and after a second, he rolled to his side, head propped up on his hand, eyes fixed on Jensen. 

"Aren't you supposed to be in Texas or somethin'?" Jared asked. 

Jensen shoved his bag to the side of the foyer with his foot and went into the living room. "It was warm in Texas. The forecast was for rain." He settled on the floor next to Jared. "That my present you were crushing with your foot?"

"Maybe." Jared reached out, ran a fingertip down the back of Jensen's hand, the lightest of touches. "What's the weather got to do with anything?"

"It's not Christmas without snow." Jensen glanced up at the tree. The angel he and Jared had bought the previous year was there, a beer can up her butt to help balance her on her perch. She shined like she had something to beam about. "You know how it is. Some things, you just can't be without on Christmas, or it's not Christmas." 

In answer, Jared leaned forward until his lips touched Jensen's, soft and welcoming, and Jensen was finally home.


End file.
